


Someday...

by Irhaboggles



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Minor Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Season 2, SuperCorp, minor supercorp - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:48:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26270653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irhaboggles/pseuds/Irhaboggles
Summary: Someday, Lena would be worthy enough to stand alongside her heroes. Someday, Lena would deserve the distinction of calling herself their friend and equal. Someday, Lena was going to be good, and she was going to be a hero in her own right. She just knew it! It would take time, but someday...
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22





	1. Someday...

"Someday. Someday I'm going to be good enough. Someday I'm going to be worthy of it," Lena muttered to herself. This was the pep talk she gave herself whenever she felt like giving up. Her life had been hard, but there was a fire in her that refused to die, and no matter how rough it got, Lena wanted nothing more than to prove herself. She wanted to prove herself as being worthy and good. She wanted to prove that she deserved every blessing she had. She wanted to feel like she was good enough to stand beside the people she loved and call herself as equal to them.

And this fire had burned within her heart for as long as she could remember. The only thing that ever changed was who she was trying to prove her worth to. The very first people were her adopted family, the Luthors. She'd wanted nothing more than to fit in and deserve the family name. Her entire life was built around chasing their approval, waiting for the day she would truly feel like one of them. But that day never came.

Then her next goal was to become the admiration of her peers. During her time in boarding school, she was always looking for new ways to shock and amaze people because she still held out the hope of one day doing something so spectacular that everyone would love and remember her forever. Her name would go down in history as heroic, and she would finally deserve to call these people her friends and equals.

But that goal failed too, in part because of her brother. Even though he used to be the one whose praise she craved the most desperately, life took him down a dark and twisted path that left her so disgusted by the entire Luthor family that it soon became her goal to prove to everyone else that she was _not_ like her adoptive family. The irony was not lost on her at all. After spending decades chasing the family name and wishing for the day when she would feel like a true Luthor, she was now going to go in reverse and spend the rest of her life trying to disown that evil name.

But even though she was now going in reverse, the core of her mission still remained the same: prove herself worthy and finally feel like she had a place where she belonged. It was the whole reason she took over her brother's company after he was arrested. She wanted to make that once-evil company into a force for good. And it was the whole reason she'd moved to National City. Because she knew Supergirl lived there and, in her mind's eye, there was no greater honor and success than getting into Supergirl's good graces.

"If I could just team up with her, prove myself to her, then I would finally be able to be a good and worthy person!" she reasoned with herself, and that was all she needed to encourage her to pack her bags and move to National City. And sure enough, she managed to meet that goal. Not long after moving in, she wound up working alongside the legendary Girl of Steel, but the quest did not end there. Instead, it was only just beginning. Lena still had a lot left to do in order to get Supergirl to like her! Already, a million plans were surging through her mind!

But, oh, poor Lena Luthor, always searching, never satisfied. Even though she'd accomplished so many things, there were still always people she felt the burning need to impress. There was always at least one person she felt unworthy of. No matter how far she came, she always considered herself presently unworthy and would thusly push herself to her very limits just to overcome this perceived barrier. She always felt like she was on the outside looking in. Did the poor woman never realize that this sense of needing to prove herself was only in her head? She already deserved all the good things she had, her mind was just refusing to let her believe it…

"Ms. Luthor!" Supergirl's voice cut through Lena's thoughts and the Luthor almost jumped up out of her seat in surprise.

"Supergirl!" she gasped, sounding like a giddy little schoolgirl with a crush. "I- I- wasn't expecting to see you here, at L-Corp, this late at night! Is… is everything alright?" trying hard to contain her stupid grin, Lena gave the Girl of Steel a polite nod.

"I just wanted to check on you to see if you were alright from that dreadful attack earlier," the Kryptonian replied as she flew into Lena's office.

For a couple seconds, all Lena could do was stare up at her in awe. Seeing Supergirl right there in front of her was every woman's _dream_! But even after Lena managed to comprehend what Supergirl had said to her, it still took her a moment to formulate a reply. For half a second, she'd forgotten the helicopter hijacking and all she could think was, _what attack?_ All that she could think about in that moment was Supergirl. It just made her feel so giddy that Supergirl cared enough to check up on her. It made her feel embarrassed, but in a wonderful way! Supergirl really knew how to make people feel special, didn't she?

But at last, Lena managed to pull herself together and offer a calm, collected response.

"Yes, I am, thank you very much for asking. It's nice of you to check up on me, and I really appreciate all your help earlier," Lena inwardly congratulated herself for being able to speak so eloquently, because heaven knew her head and heart were racing a million miles an hour. But somehow, they managed to go even faster when Supergirl's heroic countenance softened into a much sweeter, softer, gentler smile of warmth.

"Good, I'm glad," she said, and even her tone managed to get gentler. Lena was sure she was going to swoon right then and there!

But luckily, she didn't, and she was successfully able to carry on a conversation with her secret fangirl crush for another 15 minutes or so before Supergirl finally flew home. Lena watched her go unhappily, but she was still over the moon, not just because Supergirl had come to visit her, but because she'd been able to successfully carry on a conversation with the mighty Girl of Steel without losing her nerve.

"Oh Supergirl, you're just so _wonderful_! How I wish I could be more like you… But never fear! Someday, I swear I will be! I swear I will be more like you, and then you'll finally be able to see me as a friend and equal. Someone you can trust and rely on. And someone I can be confident in saying deserves to stand by your side! I swear it!"

And in the months to come, as Lena continued to work her way into Supergirl's good graces, she found herself beginning to ally with all the other members of Supergirl's team. The Superfriends, as they affectionately called themselves. Although Lena never asked, it soon became her greatest wish to one day receive the honor of being allowed to call herself a Superfriend too.

"Someday… Someday…" she told herself, trying to reign herself in. "Someday I will be good enough to stand alongside my heroes. Someday I will deserve to call myself a Superfriend. And Supergirl? I swear I'll be with you someday."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Set in 2x01, I just wanted to write Lena secretly pining to be a Superfriend and feeling like she has to earn that honor before she can claim it even though she's already more than worthy enough.


	2. Paragon of Hope

They called Supergirl the Paragon of Hope and, in many ways, that was true. But she was far from the only hopeful one. A close contender had been none other than Lena Luthor, of all people. No matter how much she claimed to have fallen into despair, even in her darkest hours, hope remained strong in her heart. It was a twisted hope, yes, but a hope nonetheless.

But perhaps that's what made her better than the other Luthors, and perhaps that's what forged her irresistible bond with Supergirl to begin with: hope. No matter how rough things were between the two of them, they were both paragons of hope in their own way, and with that sort of common value acting as the foundation of their relationship, it should've been no surprise that, through thick and thin, there was always going to be some little string of fate that tied their stories together.

Lena had spent her life hoping. Hoping to have a good, happy, normal life. Hoping to fit in with her adoptive family. Hoping to make them proud of her. Hoping to be worthy of the family name. Hoping she'd find a place where she truly belonged. Even though all the signs pointed against such dreams coming true, there was a tiny part of Lena that could never truly be squelched down. Life certainly liked to put her to the test on an almost daily basis, but even as a little girl, Lena was always hopeful. Hopeful that, someday, she would find her happily ever after, her "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".

"I know that there's a place for me out there somewhere! I may not know where it is or when I'll find it, but I know it's there! I can feel it!" she would tell herself whenever she felt particularly alone. As supportive as her adoptive father and brother tried to be, they were far from perfect, and sometimes it was nothing they did, rather, it was just Lena's own mind playing cruel tricks on her, trying to convince her that she did not truly belong with them. Even in moments when Lex and Lionel were at their most loving, Lena would feel a terrifying and heartbreaking distance between herself and them. It often served as a cruel reminder that no matter how hard any of them tried, there was some invisible wall between her and the other Luthors that none of them knew how to cross.

"But one day, I will find a place where there will _be_ no walls or borders or boundaries!" she would tell herself. Even if she could not connect with her adoptive family, for whatever reason, she still held out the hope that, someday, she would find her place in the world. She would find her home. Her squad. Her group. Her team. Her _family_. And then, she would never feel lonely or out of place ever again. She'd finally feel at peace and she'd finally have a place to call her own, a place where she felt like she fit in, and a place where she was comfortable.

And even after years of searching, Lena never gave up on this hope. Through all the despair she endured, there was _always_ hope. And then at last, it seemed like life finally decided to reward her in the form of Kara Danvers. After literal decades of heartache and betrayal, just when Lena had thought she would be done trying to find a place where she belonged, Kara Danvers walked into her life and the rest was history. For the first time ever, Lena felt at peace with someone. She felt content and comfortable, like she was somewhere that she was meant to be. There was no discomfort, no sense of worry or distance. For the first time, Lena felt complete. Like she'd once said, she'd never had a family like Kara before.

But then came the dark days when a very unfortunate secret was made known to her. Kara Danvers was Supergirl, and she had kept this dirty little secret from Lena for _years_. Learning that secret had been so traumatizing to Lena that it felt as if her whole world had been ripped out from underneath her. Her trust and abandonment issues came back in full swing and she drew inward on herself, closing off from the outside world completely. Had all of it been a lie then? That sense of safety and freedom? Had all of it been fake? Had Lena only ever been in love with a dream?

This was the event that pushed her across the despair event horizon, even creating an A.I. to keep her company in Kara's absence. This A.I. was named Hope, because it was Lena's very last. With even Kara turning traitor against her, Lena felt truly alone once more, and she felt as if the only way to protect herself from ever being hurt again was if she could render it impossible for other humans to hurt people. Thus led to the creation of Project _Non Nocere_ , an attempt to create a better world. Her attempt at being her own hero, since she couldn't rely on anyone else.

"I said I wanted a place to call home, so now I'm going to make that place the entire world," she muttered as she continued to draw up the plans. Even now, in her own dark and twisted way, Lena was still hopeful. She was still looking towards the future, as always, and wondering how she could make it better for herself. Someday, she was gonna find the place where she belonged, even if she had to build that place up herself, brick by brick by brick! She was going to be her own hero because she was all she had left! But that plan crumbled to dust when Kara interfered. Again.

And more and more continued to go wrong, including the end of the entire universe, and the return of her wicked brother, Lex Luthor. Through all of that impossible chaos, it soon became hard to remember which way was up, and which way was down. But there _was_ one consistent thing in her life, and that was Kara, for better or worse. In a case of very cruel irony, even though it had been Kara who had broken her down this low, it was also Kara who seemed like she was going to bring Lena back up.

For all her life, Lena had only wanted stability and security. Just a place where she could feel at ease, and not constantly feel like an outsider. Or wonder if everyone else secretly hated her. All she wanted was a home. A place to go back to at the end of every stressful day and unwind in a way that made her truly happy and felt truly authentic. She thought she'd had that sanctuary in Kara, but then that went up in flames, and yet in this new and crazy world of theirs, Kara had come back as her one and only constant in life. It was a truth Lena did not want to face, but she couldn't deny it either. Even after all this time, Kara was still there.

"I don't know if I'm ready to forgive her," the Luthor admitted to herself. "But it seems that I'm going to need to keep working with her for the foreseeable future…" so even if Lena wasn't happy about it, it seemed like Kara was going to have to remain as Lena's foundation. But just standing beside the Girl of Steel again, no matter how strained their relationship was, brought back phantom feelings from another time, years ago, when they still called one another friend. Lena really, _really_ didn't like to admit it but, in that moment, she felt like she was coming home again, to the place where she belonged. Even after all this time, it was Kara… She really hadn't ever had a family quite like Kara before…

Well, Lena had said she always wanted a place where she truly felt like she belonged. It seemed as if Kara was still that place even after all the heartbreak between the two of them. So was Lena going to bite? Or was she going to keep her heart closed off? Only time would tell. But without even meaning for it to, the tiniest sparks of hope began to flicker up from the pit of her stomach. It was not an innocent or idealistic hope. It was more something built upon a foundation of suffering and endurance. It was a tired but stable hope. A familiar feeling in an unfamiliar world. Was reconciliation possible? Maybe. Did Lena want it? … Maybe. Was Lena going to try for it? … Probably. Was Lena going to hope for it?

They called Supergirl the Paragon of Hope and, in many ways, that was true. But she was far from the only hopeful one. A close contender had been none other than Lena Luthor, of all people. No matter how much she claimed to have fallen into despair, even in her darkest hours, hope remained strong in her heart. It was a twisted hope, yes, but a hope nonetheless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: This goes out to anyone who feels out of place right now but still carries a hope that they will, someday, find the place where they belong. I'm rooting for you!


End file.
